Tue 30 Jun 2009
Movie Review: RINGS ON HER FINGERS (1942).
Posted by Steve under Films: Comedy/Musicals , Reviews[4] Comments
RINGS ON HER FINGERS. 20th Century-Fox, 1942. Gene Tierney, Henry Fonda, Laird Cregar, Spring Byington, John Shepperd (Shepperd Strudwick), Frank Orth, Henry Stephenson. Director: Rouben Mamoulian.
Gene Tierney was as beautiful an actress as Hollywood ever produced, wasn’t she?
In the scene in this mostly light-hearted movie in which she’s trying to attract Henry Fonda’s attention, dressed in a single piece bathing suit and stretched out on a blanket along the shore, he’s so distracted he can hardly talk, and who can blame him?
Over the span of her career, Gene Tierney didn’t do too many romantic comedies – most of her films seems to be straight dramas (Dragonwyck, The Razor’s Edge) or crime films with a strong noirish flavor (Laura, of course, and Night and the City) – but she acquits herself well in Rings on Her Fingers, making me wish she’d done more movies in the same vein.
Looking through her list of films, I see only That Wonderful Urge (1948), a remake of Love Is News (1937), with Tyrone Power in both, as a movie that’s in any sense comparable to Rings on Her Fingers.
In a way, you might call this film a “re-imagining” of The Lady Eve (1941), in which Henry Fonda played against Barbara Stanwyck. The gimmick here is that Henry Fonda’s character is poor, not rich, and when Gene Tierney’s character is part of a flim-flam which fleeces him of $15,000 hard-earned dollars, it’s easy to see that the two of them will get together, but how will she keep her part of the swindle a secret from him?
Not that she’s a bad girl, only a shop girl easily tempted by glamor and easy riches, and taken in by the real pair of crooks, Laird Cregar and (believe it or not) Spring Byington. And what a mis-matched pair they are: Cregar was a giant of a man in size (but nimble enough on his feet), and Byington was tiny and nearly swallowed up on the screen in comparison.
Is this a screwball comedy? I’ve asked myself that, and when I did, I didn’t get an immediate response, mostly because, like “noir film,” I don’t know that I have an exact definition of screwball comedy in mind.
But I guess I know one when I see one, and at the moment I’m inclined to say No as far as Rings on Her Fingers is concerned. The romantic problems are a little too real, with too much of an edge to them (how does she keep him finding out that she was part of the con game that took him in?), and there doesn’t seem to be the kind of goofy wackiness that I associate with other screwball comedies of the 1940s.
As for Henry Fonda, he’s perfect for the part, naive but noble, and what a way to make a living: kissing Gene Tierney.
June 30th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
I just watched LAURA again recently and was impressed by the beauty of Gene Tierney all over again. It’s too bad she suffered from mental problems, etc. Then I watched one of the TV remakes of Laura, this one done in 1955 for 20th Century Fox Hour. It starred George Sanders in the Clifton Webb role and Robert Stack as the detective. Dana Wynter tried her best but she was no Laura.
One scene even showed George Sanders in what looked like the very same distinctive bathtub that Clifton Webb used. Unfortunately the entire 50 minute production suffered in comparison to the original 1944 film, but it was fascinating to see their interpretation.
Speaking of film noir, there is a new interesting book just out in the BFI Screen Guide series, titled 100 FILM NOIRS by Jim Hillier & Alastair Phillips. I ordered mine from amazon.com at around $13.00. 100 films each get discussed in two or three pages.
June 30th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
She scared me to death in LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN.
June 30th, 2009 at 8:01 pm
Walker
There are some movies that shouldn’t be remade, and LAURA has to be one of them. Not that people don’t try.
And thanks for the tip on 100 FILM NOIRS. There’s something about the genre that keeps books like this coming out. It’s so new that no one’s reviewed it on Amazon yet, but given the BFI imprint, I’ve gone ahead and ordered it.
Patti
LEAVE HER TO HEAVEN is a rare noir film that’s in Technicolor. I’d love to see it on a big screen!
— Steve
June 30th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Tierney’s other comedies include The Mating Season, That Wonderful Urge, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and Heaven Can Wait, the latter a lovely Ernst Lubitsch fantasy comedy in handsome color with Don Ameche as a roue’ trying to convince Laird Cregar’s Satan why he belongs in Hell. Alas Warren Beatty used the title for the remake of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, forever confusing the issue. The Lubitsch is a much better film with droll performances from Cregar and Charles Coburn.
I do think Rings on Her Fingers just makes it into the screwball school in the same sense that The More the Merrier does. I can’t think of the author off hand, but there is a fine book on the Romantic Comedies of that era that deals with both types of film.
And Leave Her to Heaven scared me too. Tierney is chilling in it, and the lake scene fully equal to Richard Widmark pushing old ladies down stairwells as one of the supreme noir moments on film.
I do recall the remake of Laura, and while Sanders tried hard, it was otherwise pretty lame. The later remakes of Dial M For Murder and Double Indemnity were equally off. Still the 1955 version was superior to the made for television movie. That was truly awful.